Thursday, October 4, 2007

September Round Up

September was a mix of good intentions, good decisions and some lousy circumstances. We did OK. I have to remember sometimes that this is a lifestyle change and not just a "get out of debt quick"plan. We are still chipping away at debt aggressively.

At the beginning of September, we had $19,484.61 in credit card debt. By the end, we had only $18,094.82. This is a value of $1389.79 in principal paid. Lower than our goal, but still a great big hunk. The principal paid off this month is 3.6% of our total credit card debt (using our rock-bottom value of $38,621.13 as the total credit card debt figure). This also means we have broken the halfway point of $19,310.57! To date, we have paid off 53% of the total debt in just under a year.

My income was still low, under budget by $691.70. I know that October will be much better because I get paid commissions for September sales, and September was a good month. This and the business expenses for my husband's travel affected our finances the most. I forgot to mention this in my earlier post, but he also uses cash from our account when he travels. In September, this added up to $400.

In addition, we had an unexpected car repair to pay for. It helped to be under both our gas budget (by $132.53) and grocery budget ( by $65.56). This can be attributed to the fact that I use less resources when my husband is traveling. Hopefully this month's electric bill will reflect the same thing.

October is going to be a great month, I can feel it! We are going to try and build our emergency fund and keep on track with our debt payoff, all while we begin shopping for the holidays. Yikes! I better make sure to keep the income up!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read your post about the business expenses. I don't know if this would help or even apply, but one thing that my company allows is to expense flights right after the reservation is made. I used to wait to expense the entire trip once I was back home, but expensing the flight helped out a lot. Good luck.

JvW said...

I will have to look into that! Most of the money is from flights.